Learn at the feet of a poet, what it is to create the germ of a poem from daily thoughts and emotions. Watch this germ take root and grow, being fed by inspiration. See it come to full-fledged â€˜Poem’ as you read this unique peek into Hunt’s diary. At the end of the trail you will read the final, a hundred-word gem tempered by the process of writing.

Editor’s Note: Four years before Burning Word began it was my pleasure to publish The Presentations, a collection of hundred-word prose poems by William B. Hunt. Cantos was the 69th poem in the collection, which was originally written for Elaine Thomas, publisher of interweave(zine). interweave(zine) is no longer online, but we were fortunate enough to salvage this manuscript and give it a permanent home. We hope you enjoy the journey.

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I am carving my name with America’s sweet blue tints directly against the sun that smokes alone in the sleepy gunsmoke of the clouds. I with a woodcut in my silver fingers see not your hands in hailstorms over iced blackberries painted against your red lips gliding into a bed’s darkness. No, our dirt and sea planet has the touch of diamond-spinning heaven, a muscular nocturne giving its best effort and hill of roses to burning Martian rust. Nothing else can bless the bond of desire to the heart’s inclination toward dreams. Restless stars gild our chamber of charms.

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Beyond her blue windowsill, the innocent stars rise in the cold night and burn in their bright silence. Art makes us golden, makes us gain a brilliant liberty in moments of love or moments of song. Midnight prayers: our lips turn white. Her green necklace chills. Soft light adorns her. The unspoken means we know the words to break every little world of dust. We know the celestial wheels are turning. We are bright and crazed. Summers, the little wheels of crystal, chrome and silver dash and burst. And the moments of orange peace. The light-causing process remains true.

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Burningword Literary Journal is an international quarterly publication focusing on emerging and established writers of poetry, short fiction, short nonfiction, and photographic artists. Burningword has been published continuously since June 2000.